Broadband Issue Keeps Getting Delayed

[realpbc]

To whomever might be reading this, hope you're doing well. I will attempt to be civil, but I apologize in advance if I come across angry - Virgin Media and their customer service have really been doing my head in these past couple of weeks. The situation is simple, really, here is the chronology:

1) Been with Virgin Media close to 3 years and have (mostly) had no issues.
2) Sometime around the 1st-2nd of this month (December) my internet (cable and WiFi) completely cut out for an extended and pretty disruptive period of time. From that point onward it became intermittent, working perfectly fine for a few minutes, then cutting entirely for a some more time, and so on and so forth.
3) Checking the Virgin Media status page I could read there was a "Broadband Issue" at my postcode, and that the outage had been "Identified and Raised", and that Virgin estimated it would be fixed the morning of the 3rd of December. 
4) On the 3rd of December, the status updated to say the estimated fix date would be the 9th.
5) On the 9th of December, the status updated to say the estimated fix date would be the 11th.
6) On the 11th of December, the status updated to say the estimated fix date would be the 16th.
7) Today, the 16th of December, the estimated fix date has changed to the 20th...
😎 What will happen on the 20th? Place your bets - my bet is it will keep getting delayed.

Is this a joke? It does't help that speaking to a human being, be it via phone or otherwise, is made borderline impossible by the Virgin Media customer service team.

This intermittent internet is entirely disruptive to my livelihood. My freelance work depends on me being able to download and upload large quantities of files daily. I repeat, I CANNOT WORK while this issue is ongoing. Considering Virgin's inability to give me an adecuate estimate for the fix, and the fact that they offer no warning on delays whatsoever until the very day that they estimate, as well as no alternative or solution, is starting take a toll on my finances this month an beginning to strain my relationship with employers who understandably will not be too eager to hire me or my shoddy internet again.

I find it absolutely inexcusable to be serviced like this by what should be a stable and competent company. Not only does it tell me that they do not care about me as a customer, it also tells me they don't respect the role they play in people's lives. Am I going to have to start asking for financial favours this Christmas because Virgin Media keeps waffling me around like a toddler?

I have absolutely no doubt that after this experience I will not be renewing my contract, and frankly I will not be using Virgin Media's services ever again if I can afford not to. Nonetheless, I still have a fair few months left on my contract, and I expect to receive the service I am paying for.

I appreciate that not all technical issues are caused or can be fixed by Virgin, and that they depend on third parties for a lot of these things, and that those can delay the process... but that shouldn't be my problem. This is much more an issue about communication, respect, accountability and decency over any specific techincal issue. I also appreciate that customer service across many industries has become progressively worse over the past couple decades, but again that race to the bottom is not an excuse.

The fact that I need to post on this forum for a human being to potentially give me further information on my issue is infuriating. If you're a Virgin Media employee looking at this post, I appreciate that this is not a problem you have personally caused, but PLEASE for the love of god help me understand:

1) What is the issue with the internet in my area?
2) Why is it taking such an embarassing amount of time to fix?
3) When can I ACTUALLY expect it to be fixed?
4) How do you recommend I deal with it in the meantime? Is there a temporary solution Virgin could provide?
5)  Am I entitled to any compensation? Considering the wording in the compensation docs, it seems like unless I've had ZERO internet continuously for 48 hours (as opposed to intermittently), I am NOT entitled to compensation. If this is true, this is the slimiest part of this whole thing.
6) If whoever is reading this cannot really help me, could you at least tell me what the ideal way to escalate this situation is? A formal complaint? Should I submit something to the Ombudsman? Or is it just more efficient to take this whole thing to court?

To any and all employees reading this who might be able to help with these questions, please DM me so I can give you the details of the account in question (it is not tied to the account I'm writing this from).

To anyone else who might be passing by because they have similar issues, my condolences, hope you find a better internet provider someday.

[jpeg1]

Quite apart from Virginmedia's terrible customer service, you must understand that using a residential broadband connection to run a business is extremely risky. 

You need a standby facility to use when your main broadband goes down, as it inevitably will from time to time. 

[Cardiffman282]

As above. Also raise a formal written complaint. The link is below. 

[realpbc]

Of course this is a very fair point, and I now understand I should've already had either a 4G/5G router or some sort of satellite connection as backup just for my own safety. I guess I've never had such a blatant or long-running internet issue, so I trusted VMs estimated fix times and didn't expect the recurring delays. 1-2 days would be fine. 1-2 weeks... I just didn't think it was possible!

But this is absolutely the correct answer to the business/financial aspect of this query, so I appreciate it. I trust following this advice I won't have to deal with this issue again.

Do you have any specific recommendations that you know of? 

[Kath_P]

Hi realpbc,

Thanks for taking the time to contact us via the Community. It's lovely having you on board with us in the Forums. ⭐

We're sorry to hear about the issues you have been having with your broadband connection. 😔 

Checking our systems, I can see that there is a fault open that is affecting you. The details of that are here: 

• ➡ Fault reference number: F011599610
• ➡ Estimated fix time: 20 Dec 2024 12:00
• ➡ Description: You might find that your Virgin Fibre, Voice and Virgin TV services are intermittent, with the picture freezing or disappearing now and then. We are sorry and our engineers are working hard to resolve this for you.

Any fix times noted are only estimates based on the information we have at the time. 😔 Whilst we work hard to meet them, sometimes we need to extend them and this is unavoidable. We're not able to expedite things as the team are already doing what they can to fix things.

There is a note of this on your account so the relevant teams are aware you are affected and this will ensure the account is assessed automatically for automatic compensation once the fault is closed as resolved. You can view more information on this, as well as the eligibility criteria here 👉 Automatic Compensation. We do recognise that sometimes you would fall outside this scheme for things such as TV loss of service or a degraded service so we do look at these issues on a case by case basis and a goodwill credit can be added by our agents too. If you believe you should be entitled to a credit, please get in touch once the fault is resolved so we can manually review things. 

If there is anything else we can do, let us know.

Thanks,